Apple MacBook Pro 13 Touch Bar (2017) Unboxing & Review

What's up guys Mike here the DetroitBORG. And Apple has updated all of its MacBook Pros with Kaby Lake CPUs and new graphics. We're going to take a look at the 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar in this video, but also be taking a look at the new cheaper $1,299 MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar, as well as a highly spec'd out 15 inch model. Again in separate videos so make sure you stay tuned for that.

Now this is the baseline configuration which starts off at a fairly hefty $1,799 but of course you can spec this all the way up to a Core i7 dual-core with 16GB of RAM. And 1 TB of SSD storage It's also available in Silver and Space Gray and of course I went with Space Gray just as I did with the previous model. Now we're going to compare them side-by-side to see the differences but again this really is just a spec bump. There's no visible differences, there's no changes to the display, the keyboard, the trackpad, the I/O or anything you might actually see or use.

Now there is one visual clue that this is a 2017 MacBook Pro and that's the symbols or icons on the control and option keys. Inside the box we'll find some pretty familiar accessories: a very neatly tied up USB-C cable for recharging the MacBook, we also get a packet with some of our paperwork, which includes a Quick Start Guide, some warranty info, as well as a set of white Apple stickers. Below that, wrapped in plastic is a 61 watt USB-C power adapter and just like before they no longer include an extension cable or a microfiber cleaning cloth. So we're turning once again, there's something that really didn't need any update at all and that's the 13.3 Inch LCD IPS display with a resolution of 2560x1600, good for 227 pixels per inch.

This is a very bright display at about 500 nits and supports the wide color spectrum, the DCI-P3 standard. And it's also covered edge-to-edge with an anti reflective glass panel. Also at the top of the display once again is a 720p FaceTime HD camera and an LED notification light. Also carried over here is the keyboard and Touch Bar.

The keyboard once again is the second-generation butterfly mechanism, which is a bit noisier, but I really like it. It makes for a very tactile experience and there's also very fast at type ons, I have really no complaints about this, but again, it is a bit noisier than some of Apple's previous keyboards. So I'll let you listen to it so you can get a feel for it for yourself. Of course, just below the keyboard, is the extra-large glass Force Touch trackpad, so no physical mechanism here, you get some taptic feedback when you press on the surface.

Now, although the trackpad does take up quite a bit of real estate on the palm rest, there is good palm rejection here, so it can tell the difference between a palm as opposed to an intentional press with your finger. Returning once again is the Touch Bar, which is an OLED display with a matte finish over the top of it, which sort of integrates with the texture of the keyboard. So, it looks very nice and it displays contextual aware controls, depending on the app or part of the system you're currently in. Now, for the most part because I've been using this for over six months now, I really haven't developed the habit of looking down at the touch bar for those useful controls and they can be useful if you remember they were there.

So, I'll have habit I really just don't look at it and so for the most part it really hasn't been that useful to me. But what I've really liked about the touch bar model is the fingerprint sensor built into the power button. So this allows me to make payments or just to unlock the computer. Once again the only ports on this computer are 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports, 2 on the left, 2 on the right, along with a headphone jack.

So, of course you're not going to escape the dongle life with this computer, but at least you get some high-speed bandwidth. The distribution isn't quite equal we have higher bandwidth on the left side than the right side, so you want to use your external GPUs on the left side while your hard drives might go on the right side. Once again the entire lid of the MacBook Pro is one piece of aluminium that goes right down to the hinge, which does integrate the antennas. Also hidden behind the hinge is the ventilation for the computer.

We also have ventilation on the bottom edges of the laptop which also act as the speaker outlets, so although it looks like we have front-facing stereo speakers those are actually sort of fiction, they do hide some microphones but otherwise they're just there for decoration. Once again we have a 49.2 Wh lithium polymer battery, so that's good for about 10 hours of wireless web, 10 hours of iTunes movie playback and up to 30 days of standby time. So, really no change from the previous model. Now the best way to show you what's actually new about these computers is to take a look at some benchmarks.

So, I'm comparing the same stock Core i5 configuration from 2016 and we can see that they were able to bump up the speed from 2.9 To 3.1 GHz. That delivers modest single-core improvements but fairly significant multi-core gains. Kaby Lake also brings us the new Iris Plus 650 integrated GPU replacing the 550 from last year. This is the only GPU available for the 13-inch MacBook Pros, but it does push us well over 40 frames per second in the Cinebench score and adds about 24 points to the CPU score.

In terms of our storage again this is PCIe based SSD storage, which remains extremely fast, but there's no change from the previous model. So in conclusion although this is not a major update from the previous model, this really should have been the version we got back in fall. So if you waited to get the MacBook Pro I think now is the right time to pick it up. Now personally I'm a big fan of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with touch bar it's my go-to laptop around the house.

And I generally don't use it for production because I have more powerful machines elsewhere, but for me it's the perfect size, it has a fantastic display, I love the keyboard and the huge trackpad and I'm not bothered by the Thunderbolt 3 ports. For the most part I really appreciate the fact that they can do so many different things, like drive 4K displays, that's something I actually do quite a bit with this. But otherwise this is a very expensive computer, I don't find a lot of value in the touch bar and this is probably more powerful than I need for my day-to-day use case. So that's why I really look forward to looking at the cheapest MacBook Pro in my next video Alright guys hope you enjoyed this look at the 13-inch with a Touch Bar.

If you did please give this video a thumbs up to let me know and I'll see you again in my next video.